How d'ye try to kill Jack, then?
by Jane Bell
Summary: One night, on deck of the Black Pearl, while escaping Davy Jones' Locker, the most nefarious of conversations develops on a topic of greatest interest: how each of the characters tried to kill Jack Sparrow.


_Disclaimer: All characters to the half-naked, very cute, little mouse. Not copyright stolen, comandeered or privateered, I'm just borrowing without permission..._

* * *

**How d'****ye try to kill Jack, then?**

"Master Cotton!" bellowed Barbossa. "Bring the trays up, dinner be served on deck this evening!"

"Trays up, Mister Cotton!" Jack bellowed after and then poked Hector on the shoulder. "Stop giving orders 'round to my crew!"

"Since I'm captain, they be _my_ crew!"

"**My** ship! Therefore **I** am captain, which leads to them being **my** crew!"

"**My** charts, **my **plan, **my** idea to save bloody you! _**I**_ am captain!"

"Mine idea t'save witted Jack," Tia Dalma interrupted their bickering.

"Aye," agreed Barbossa irritated and shivering from the stern, cold look the witch gave him. "But without me-"

"Wit'out Liz'beth," Tia Dalma smiled at the woman sitting quietly in a forgot corner, then at Jack's puzzlement and William's frown before turning back to Barbossa, "and William Turna, and Jack's faithyful crewbies, ye'd never ha'got tis far."

"How so very, amazingly, sweetly, enticingly** kind** of all of you!" Jack snorted after the most awkward of silences made of Elizabeth fidgeting, Will rolling his eyes and Gibbs mopping the deck furiously as it the conversation did not concern him. "My potential killers and charming murderess united for the greatest good of bringing old me back…"

"I never tried to kill you," said William as if to lessen the heavy mood between his fiancé, the two captains and the voodoo lady. "Not that I recall."

"Oh, do you not now?" Jack smirked as he staggered closer to Will leaning on the railing, every "O" of his sentence punctuated by a perfect circle on his lips. "In your smithy when we met, in Isla de Muerta when you chose to save bell-dandy-lassie and knock me unconscious with an oar," he pressed an accusative ringed finger onto Will's heart, "and in Isla Cruces, again bell-dandy-lassie and that bloody kiss? What was that _but_ trying to kill me?!"

"You mean that bloody**key**?" Will said feeling his throat burning and his fingers quivering to strangle the man before him.

"Yes, yes, the ruddy, bloody key!" Jack turned around as to leave and hide the faint blush on his cheeks. "I'll be fetching me onesy a drink, if ye'd excuse_ moi_…"

"Maybe I did try to kill him… A few times," Will admitted while absent-mindedly toying with his food.

"Not more than I did," Barbossa chuckled warmly. "Marooning him on that little island ain't even half of what he endured of me…" he scratched his greasy beard as he took a bit of buttered toast. "Masters Pintel and Ragetti shall remember well how I tried accidentally to send our former captain to the Locker…"

"Oh yes!" Pintel showed decayed teeth in an excited smile. "Like that time ye tied that noose 'round his neck as safety rope when he was up at the crow's nest!" he clapped his hands.

"Pity it didn't work," Ragetti mumbled. "Though setting the monkey to poison his dinner was clever."

"But the best one," Barbossa said with a vast gesture, "was in Singapore…" The mention of the place had the rest of the crew listening, even those who could barely understand English. "I had the cutest, littlest, most powerful-fathered, virgin-looking trollop brought to him… Cost a very shiny penny, she did."

"Poor lost soul, that girl was," Jack said with a none-too-discreet smile upon getting back and sitting on a barrel, a bottle of rum in his hands.

"Paying him a whore was the same as trying to kill him?" Will asked.

"If her father thought she a maiden, if he caught the merry couple in the act," Barbossa eyed William and Elizabeth and cackled at their furious blushing before continuing. "Most importantly, if her father is Sao Feng, that _is_ trying to kill him."

"Zat 'as low," said Tia Dalma amidst the laughter of the crew (apparently, most of those men had slept with Sao Feng's daughter, too, and had managed not to be discovered).

"How d'ye try to kill Jack, then?" asked Hector.

"Oh…" the witch smiled wickedly. "Wit ze power o' Iemanjá" she paced around Barbossa, picking up a piece of meat from his plate with her fork.

"And why?" asked William, too afraid of her grinning to inquire how the powers of a Sea Goddess had been used to attempt killing Jack.

"Zat 'as before I met 'im, when I knew 'im only by 'is tittle," she sat by Jack's side, playing with his braided beard affectionally. "Wouldn't eva ha' done id if I knew 'im personally."

"Doesn't quite answer the question," Jack groaned while encircling her shoulders with one of his arms and evilly watching Elizabeth neglecting her food to stare alternatively between him and Will.

"Explanations are 'ardly needed," she purred. "When you is concerned…"

"You're right," Jack smiled when Elizabeth looked away and he realised the many envious looks he was receiving from his crew. "Now, you plotters," he kissed Tia Dalma on the cheek and got up staggering leisurely towards Elizabeth's corner. "You've all tried, some more traditionally," he put a hand on Will's shoulder. "Some more creatively," the other hand rested on Barbossa's shoulder. "And some even supernaturally!" he indicated Tia Dalma. "None made it, but this lovely, distressing Lady Elizabeth!"

"But she didn't really kill you," Will leaped to her rescue with words, but remained seated, not daring to get up and confront him. "Here you are, well and alive!"

"A good deed is not enough to redeem a lifetime of mischief, missy there taught me that upon our first, rather unfriendly meeting."

"Lifetime?" Will asked heatedly. "You're the pirate, not her!"

"Stop defending her, boy!" Barbossa interrupted. "Let the lady talk, will ye?"

"Yes!" Jack patted his ex-first mate on the shoulder as he eyed Elizabeth with a villainous smile and shinning eyes. "Do tell them, dearie, how you successfully sent me to the sinking darkness and cursed existence in Davy Jones's Locker."

"I…" Elizabeth faltered, catching Will's eager stare, Jack's laughing eyes, Tia Dalma's seriousness and Barbossa's sleepy smile. "I shackled him."

"Shackled?" asked Barbossa bemused by the multiple meaning of her answer.

"To the mast," she said trying to sound surer of herself than she felt. "The Kraken was coming after us, so I left him behind."

"Now, Jack," Barbossa laughed. "That's got to be the most traditional, creative and supernatural way of killing you I heard this night!"

"But," Tia Dalma said sounding both amused and serious, "how d‎'ye do id?"

"How?" Elizabeth faked a smile. "With every-day, average shackles," she laughed nervously.

"Hard-to-remove shackles, I might add," Jack said as he staggered away from her and back to Tia Dalma's embrace, happy to see Elizabeth fidgeting again. "Worth the while, though."

"Worth the while?" Barbossa mocked him. "Why on God's green Earth dying clapped in irons would be worth anybody's while?"

"Ah, _Hector_!" Jack said fondly as Tia Dalma nuzzled her face in his dangling beads. "For the very same reason I thanked you for paying me Sao Feng's not-so-honourable daughter!" he laughed heartedly along with the rest of his crew but for William and Elizabeth, the later being the reddest she had ever been in her life.

"Be waiting in yer cabin…" Tia Dalma purred in Jack's ear loud enough for Barbossa to hear.

"With due respect, miss," the older captain said. "That be my cabin ye're getting into."

"**My **cabin!" Jack exclaimed outraged. "This be **MY** ship!"

"Mine idea t'save Jack!" Tia Dalma said. "Me sas I git ze cabin!"

"Since we're on the matter, my cabin!" Will entered the quarrelling with all intentions to irritate Jack and settle unresolved business with Elizabeth. "It was I who got the charts in the first place, without which we'd never have found _him_!" she said the last word with disdain dripping from his voice. "My cabin!"

"Our cabin, then," Pintel argued with Ragetti nodding by his side at the perspective of a night in the comfy captain's bed instead of the rough, sail-made hammocks. "We remained loyal to this ship all along!"

"Don't matter the cap'n," Ragetti said as to improve their argument and making it regrettably worse.

"If I might give me own humble opinion," Gibbs spoke for the first time since the nefarious conversation had started. "We, including ev'ry and each one of us, wouldn't be here if not fer one person. T'will be much more sensible to leave the cabin to tis person, aye?"

"Of course!" Jack agreed happily. Good old Gibbs, defending him…

"So Miss Elizabeth gets ter sleep in the cap'n's cabin."

"What?!" mouthed Will, Elizabeth and Jack.

"Sounds reasonable," said Barbossa.

"Fair," agreed Tia Dalma.

"Hm… 'Right," muttered Pintel and Ragetti.

"Not reasonable, or fair, or right!" Jack argued, a careful hand on his pistol ready to fire at Will should he unleash his sword as he had been threatening to since Elizabeth had first spoken. "No murderess of mine is sleeping in _MY_ cabin!"

"Stop calling her a criminal, Jack!" Will's hand on the sword hilt tightened.

"Haven't you noticed you're the only one bothered by it?" Jack said as he turned to Elizabeth with a twisted smile. "Tell me, _Lizzie_, is the nasty pirate troubling you, darling?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," she said to the cracking of his pleased mask and Will's small, momentary smile as she got up. "I meant what I said back then. I am not sorry."

"Great girl!" Barbossa clapped.

"O' course you are!" Jack argued, seeing she was trembling slightly. "Otherwise ye wouldn't have come!"

"Feeling guilty and being sorry are two different things!"

"Are not!"

"If I may interfere," Will said, unable to refrain from pocking the wound. "You aren't sorry for what?"

"I…" Elizabeth's voice failed. "I feel no guilt about having left him behind."

"True enough, Miss Swann," Jack said in a laughing tone. "But, since you so nicely stated guilt and sorriness are two different things, be kind as to tell dear William the reason I rightfully called you pirate after you heartlessly left me for dead."

"I… I mean… Oh God, _alright_!" she breathed feeling irritation boiling and throwing caution to the wind. They all knew, of course they did. If the fun was making her suffer for not admitting it, so be it, she would admit it. "I _**kissed**_ him!" she nearly screamed. "I kissed him_ hard_ and **shoved** him against the mast and shackled him there!"

"That sure explains a lot," Barbossa laughed at her red cheeks and heavy falling and raising chest.

"Dos well," Tia Dalma smiled as if congratulating her. "Id takes lot o' courage ta give up ze one precious ta ye."

"Absurd courage," Will agreed bitterly while glaring at his fiancé. "If you'd all excuse me, I'm retiring for the night," he said as he left their merry circle of conversation to go bellow-decks.

"Me too," Tia Dalma smiled mischievously as she followed William. "Barbossa, come," she ordered and the captain followed with a half-smile, half-frown on his face.

"That leaves just you and me, Lizzie!" Jack said feeling cheerful thanks to the bottle of rum which he held loosely by neck.

"And you're happy about it?" she asked as she took the bottle from his hands.

"Quite," Jack embraced her fondly and grinned when she did not flinch. "Specially 'cause _**my**_ cabin is empty."

"Not for long," she said after drinking what was left of the rum.

"I knew you'd warm up to me."

"Eventually," she shook her head at the dizziness the drink provided and went to the captain's cabin. "Good night, Jack."

"Good nigh- Lizzie!" he exclaimed and ran to the door she had just closed behind her, only to find it locked. "Lizzie! Open the door! Lizzie!"

"I'm trying to sleep, Jack, so shush!" her muffled voice said. "Go away!"

"But all hammocks and bunks are taken!" he punched the door. "That bed in there is big enough for two! Let me in!"

"Killing you has accordingly given me the right to claim it as _my _cabin, therefore **my **right to choose my bedmates, so _go away_!"

"Is that so?" he grinned wickedly and went bellow-decks where the crew slept, shaking a certain former blacksmith awake. "On your feet, William!"

"What?" the young man protested as he was kicked away from his hammock.

"Future Mrs. Turner calls Mr. Turner for a long needed conversation on the for-the-night-hers, my cabin."

"Does she, now?" Will crossed his arms in mistrust.

"Assuredly, mate."

"Alright," he said checking his sword and pistols. He did not like it when Jack smiled with shiny, golden teeth. "And you…?"

"Nop', don't fancy a threesome tonight, thank you thoroughly much," Jack said as he pulled Will towards the stairs. "Now go, let us not leave fair murderess waiting…"

"You disgusting, sick, nasty _pirate_…" Will breathed half-thankful, half-wary. "Why are you doing this?"

"You could say I'm traditionally, creatively and none-too-supernaturally trying to kill you and bell-dandy-lassie," Jack shone golden teeth again. "Or that I am attempting a peace treaty."

"Elizabeth wouldn't kill me or herself if I went to talk to her."

"Then my intentions are solemnly noble," Jack said as he laid on William's hammock.

"You've got to be the best pirate I've ever seen…"

"Cheers, mate."


End file.
